They’re coming for my beloved em dash.
Yes, the humble — or some might say dramatic — em dash. That long little line that makes your sentences pause, interrupt, and sometimes just trail off mysteriously. It’s a punctuation mark that lets writers channel their inner raconteur, their stream-of-consciousness, and their occasional need to sassily cut themselves off mid-thought.
But here’s the problem: apparently, if you use an em dash in your writing these days, you’re a bot. An AI. A synthetic word spitter. Because, in the current zeitgeist, the em dash has become the fingerprint of artificial intelligence.
Let me unpack this madness.
Across social media, writing forums, and yes, even in professional circles, people have started to claim that whenever you see a sentence with an em dash, it must be “AI-generated content.” The logic is simple (and wildly inaccurate): humans supposedly don’t use em dashes like this anymore. They are “too perfect,” “too consistent,” or “too polished,” like some machine wrote them without the messy quirks of human typing. As if the mere presence of long, dramatic pauses and intentionally fragmented clauses is somehow robotic.
So what are humans left with? The comma, the period, or heaven forbid — the ellipsis (…). No more graceful detours or interruptions allowed. No more writing that feels like a person thinking aloud and changing their mind halfway through a sentence.
Frankly, it’s offensive.
I have been abusing the em dash for years — long before ChatGPT even existed. It’s my favorite punctuation weapon of choice because it does what commas and parentheses can’t: it adds flair, emphasis, and a little chaos to my writing. It’s like the jazz solo of punctuation marks — unexpected, a little rebellious, and totally memorable.
Using an em dash isn’t about being “perfect.” It’s about nuance. It’s about tone. It’s about pacing and rhythm. It’s giving readers a moment to breathe or a nudge to pay attention.
I refuse to let some algorithm claim ownership of something that feels so inherently human.
I don’t always use it correctly. Sometimes I overuse it. Sometimes I insert it where it doesn’t belong. Sometimes I just like the way it looks. And that—my friends—is the mark of a true em dash enthusiast.
So, if you find my writing peppered with — you guessed it — em dashes, don’t jump to conclusions. It’s not AI. It’s me, an imperfect, opinionated human being with a flair for the dramatic.
And if anyone wants to take my em dash away, they’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.